Hehe, I must say that I addicted to Sambal, I feel like my life is Bland when I am eating without spiciness (so I am not only eat Sambal, sometime I just sprinkle dried bird eye chilli into my dishes, and a lot of it). Do you know that mostly for us Indonesian, Sambal is appetite enhancer, that will make you want to eat more and more, I even know one of my friend that set a limit on how much Sambal he can eat, otherwise he will over eating *haha such a funny story.

Balado is really famous dishes in Indonesia, I think every family have their own recipe, like me, but my sister in law are giving me really nice trick to make the recipe even more richer and delicious.

All you need is to wait the spice paste really dried before you add some vegetable oil and other fragrance spices. This trick make the dishes freshly tangy and savorier. I add some ginger torch to this recipe, it is not necessary if you don’t have it in hand, But I will show you how it look like, the flower bud are pink and quite big flower.

BALADO TERONG (AUBERGINE IN TANGY SAMBAL)

SERVE 2 portion (it intended to serve with other complement, such as rice, quinoa and any other healthy carbohydrate source)

INGREDIENT

• 4 Asian aubergine, half it and slice it into bite size (Asian aubergine are available in Asian store, it is more skinny and savorier compare to normal Aubergine that available here in my nearby)
• 2 red chilli (seed out)
• 1 medium size French shallot
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 medium size ripen tomatoes
• 5 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 lemon grass, smashed the white part to release the fragrance
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1 tbs vegetable oil
• 5 tbs vegetable oil to fried the aubergine

HOW TO

1. In a blender, put inside the tomatoes, shallot, garlic and chilli, blitz them until smooth.
2. Mean a while fried the aubergine until soft and set aside.
3. In medium size pan and medium heat, put inside the Sambal paste, cooked them until the water are reduce, then put inside the vegetable oil, lemon grass and the kaffir lime leaves, sautéed them until really fragrance.
4. After the paste are fragrance, put back cooked aubergine, season with sea salt and brown sugar, leave it boiled for few minute then take it out from the heat.
5. Ready to serve.